These past couple weeks have been really stressful to say the least with everything going on. The stress between figuring out whats going to happen with school, jobs, and overall living. It has been bitter sweet hearing the fact that we need to self quarantine and pretty much be stuck in our house alone but also getting some break from going into work and school. The biggest thing that a lot of people are worrying about who set health related goals especially in this class is the fact that gyms are closed for who know hows long. But we need to take this time to focus our efforts on different aspects of health for example if we are primarily focused on the muscular strength aspect we can refocus our efforts on to cardiovascular health so we still stay in shape. In my case I figured that the gyms were going to close and I was fortunate enough to have a home gym that I can still continue my fitness journey on. Although i do miss the regular gym due to the atmosphere and feeling of being surrounded with other people who have the same goals which motivates you.
I am sure that since we are all college students we all have experienced our own use of alcohol and tobacco, whether that has been good or bad experiences. It tends to be the college norm to drink whether you want to or feel peer pressured to. Several factors however influence college students to drink so heavily when going to college especially the fact that have the new freedom of living away from home and being able to do what they want without consequences or so they thought. Actually a lot of college students who binge drink “In the past 12 months, a significant number of college students who drank experienced at least one negative consequence of alcohol consumption”(153). This can lead to students having bad experiences that they may regret later or life or even the next day. Alcohol when not drinking responsibly can cause some people to experience situations that they would not be in if they were sober. Drinking also may affect your grades while in school. “The more students drink, the more likely they are to miss class, do poorly on tests and papers, have lower grade point averages, and fall behind on assigned work”(154). I will be the first to say that my freshman year first semester I feel into this category and did not perform as good as I would have hoped to. But you live and you learn with every situation in life.
Another topic that I found interesting was the large percentage of people who use tobacco products. “Approximately 36 million Americans age 18 and older report using tobacco products”(169). This has definitely been an upward trend that a lot of younger kids are getting involved with especially with the vapes and e-cigarettes having such a wide range of flavors which draws in the younger crowd. This is becoming a problem not just with people who are in college and 18 and older but also it is affected the younger age from 12-18 which is scary because kids at this age are still developing and it is going to affect them in the long run.
Since this is a health class I figured the last topic I would talk about was the effects that alcohol and tobacco have on your overall health and health in the gym. For people who are avid gym goers or even people who just like to stay in shape the use of these drugs are counterproductive and will hurt you although you may not think so if used short- term. For people who are interested in losing weight Alcohol is a big way to actually do the complete opposite and make you gain weight. According to this chapter “By drinking an extra 150 calories a day more than you need, you can gain 1 pound a month and up to 12 pounds a year”(158). Which I am sure a lot of people are not drinking one drink a day so they think this won’t happen but if you pair just drinking on the weekends you consume a lot more calories than you think. Whether it comes from the alcohol alone or the munchies you get when you get home from the bar. In turn even if you aren’t worried about gaining weight because you go to the gym, you have to consider the fact that on days where you consume a lot of alcohol you are less likely to want to go to the gym the next day because you are hungover. Even if you do get the courage to go you might not have the best workout because of the dehydration factor. The use of tobacco also has some very negative effects on the health of the body. ” Smoking decreases oxygen supplied to the heart and contributes to irregular heart rhythms”(170). Also “Smokers are more prone to breathlessness, chronic cough, and excess phlegm production than are nonsmokers their age”(170). These two things alone contribute to how effective your workouts are without the health of your lungs and heart how are you going to improve the way you look and feel. So these two drugs combined play a big toll on your bodily functions.
